


The Formidable Waffles of Bernard Oiseau-Bâton

by birdthatlookslikeastick



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: 3D Printing, Anti-Cellphone Sentiments, Communing with Rats, Differential Geometry, Enhance, Mary Sue, Mathematics, Nicely tailored suits, Other, Quantum Gravity, Savory Waffles, Sourdough Waffles, Wafflefic, Waffles, string theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 07:08:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6145656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdthatlookslikeastick/pseuds/birdthatlookslikeastick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 11th Precinct are in a little over their heads this time - it looks like they'll need computer chops, advanced mathematics, 3D printing, rat knowledge and waffle-cooking skills to crack this case. But wait - who is this tall, handsome, well-dressed stranger in Reese's office?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Formidable Waffles of Bernard Oiseau-Bâton

**Author's Note:**

> Pronunciation Guide: In case you haven't seen French Canadian names. Roughly speaking,
> 
> Bernard Oiseau-Bâton = "Bear-Narr Woz-oh Bah-Taw". 
> 
> So that's a nearly silent d in Bernard, and a nearly silent n in Bâton. Like, make like you're gonna pronounce the "d" and the "n", but then decide not to pronounce it at the last minute. Also, dig deep in your throat for that first "r" in "Bernard".

Hanson sighed and pushed away from his desk. "Well, I'm stumped. Lunch, Jo? Chinese?" Jo nodded and reached for her jacket. 

They walked down the hall, but passing Reece's office, they smelled something amazing. 

"Sheesh," said Hanson. "What's she having?"

They poked their heads in the door, puzzled at the tableau before them.

A tall, slender man stood in front of a portable waffle iron. He was impeccably dressed in a trim-fit charcoal two-piece suit and jacket, worn over a tasteful black turtleneck. He waited, watching the steaming iron with a mysterious intensity. As he waited, he withdrew a moleskine journal from his inside jacket pocket and wrote mysterious symbols into it with a fountain pen.

Reece was at her desk, eating a savory Belgian waffle with poached pears, brie and a balsamic vinaigrette reduction. "Ah, Detectives Hanson and Martinez," she said. "I'd like to introduce my cousin, Bernard Oiseau-Bâton, visiting from Montreal. He is a waffle chef and a mathematician."

Bernard nodded graciously at the two detectives. "Would you care to taste my wares?"

Hanson and Jo shared a long look. Midday waffles and mysterious men in turtlenecks were not typical features of the 11th Precinct.

"We eat the waffle now, don't we?" said Hanson, under his breath.

"Yes, we eat the waffle," replied Jo, resigned. "How bad can it be?"

***

The detectives munched their waffles, which were really quite excellent, as they discussed their case. They had immediately taken a liking to Bernard Oiseau-Bâton, despite a nagging feeling that the handsome and intelligent stranger was sort of annoying.

"So yeah," said Hanson. "This serial killer dude seems to have sent us a message consisting entirely of zeros and ones. It's some kind of code." He chewed thoughtfully on his waffle. "A _computer_ code," he added, his brow furrowing.

Reece stared at Hanson. "And so you printed it out? Eleven pages of zeros and ones that you don't understand?"

Jo spread her hands. "Ordinarily we'd go to Henry with something like this, but you know how he is with technology."

Reece frowned. "Sounds like a waste of time—yours _and_ mine." She placed the file on her desk and stepped up to the detectives, her heels clicking pointedly on the floor. "Tell me about your other leads. Do we know who this guy is?"

Hanson spread his hands. "We've got some surveillance video from the last kidnapping, but it's pretty blurry. Here, take a look." The three officers crowded around the computer. As they worked, Bernard Oiseau-Bâton closed his waffle iron after brushing it down. He picked up the file in his slender fingers. He gazed at it, and then into the distance; his hair fluttered in a breeze which really should not have been able to blow through the precinct offices. He uncapped his fountain pen and absently tapped it on the file.

"Seventy-four thousand, four hundred eighty-three," he said quietly, his dark eyes burning.

"Sorry?" said Jo.

"The way this is printed, there are one hundred twenty digits in each line, and sixty lines to a page, for the first ten pages. The eleventh page has twenty full lines, and eighty-three digits on the last line. In all, seventy-four thousand, four hundred eighty-three zeros and ones."

Hanson stared at him blankly. "And? What is this, my tax return?"

Bernard smiled faintly. "It is a curious number, do you not agree? 74483 is the product of two primes, 211 and 353."

The detectives stared at him blankly as he stepped to the computer, unbuttoning the top button of his well-cut blazer as he seated himself and opened the file. " _Mes amis_ , this document is meant to be viewed as a picture two hundred eleven pixels wide and three hundred fifty-three pixels high. The zeros are black pixels, the ones as white pixels. Look!" A picture flashed up on the screen.

Hanson stared at Bernard. "Yeah, I have no idea what you just said. Did you draw that?"

Bernard shook his head. "It is another way to view the ones and zeros you gave me—an old mathematical trick." 

Hanson shook his head. "But what kind of wacko would store a computer file in ones and zeros?" 

Meanwhile, Jo was staring at the image. "It's a street map!" breathed Jo, astonished. "We just need to find what area of the city that is!" She printed off a copy and dashed to her own office, nearly running into Assistant Chief Medical Examiner Henry Morgan in the doorway as he made his way in.

Henry took stock of the room, and noting the unfamiliar face, stepped forward and offered his hand.

“Ah, I don’t think we’ve met,” said Henry to Bernard. “Henry Morgan, Assistant Chief Medical Examiner.”

“Bernard Oiseau-Bâton, mathematician and waffle chef. I am pleased to make your acquaintance!” Bernard stood and clasped Henry’s hand with a firm yet civilized grip. He gave Henry an approving once-over. “I see you have excellent taste in menswear. A Paul Stuart, I believe? I shop there myself, when I am in New York.”

“Yes indeed,” said Henry, evidently pleased to have had his suit so readily recognized. “Your suit is well tailored, too—who is your tailor?” 

“Atelier Tailleur Mark Montreal, they are very well known.”

Henry’s eyes lit up with interest, but before he could irrecoverably fall into the topic of bespoke menswear with Bernard, Reece cleared her throat.

"Henry, you’re just the man we need," said Reece. "We've got a surveillance video showing the kidnapper. We think he's going to make another move, but we can't identify him. Show him, Bernard."

Bernard sat back down at the computer. His fingers danced over the keyboard with the elegant grace of a pianist mid-concerto. The video flickered on the screen, frozen on the kidnapper’s face. He was thin-lipped, pale, with short dark hair visible beneath the flat newsboy cap pulled low on his brow.

Henry hissed, and everyone looked to him. He was poorly covering a shocked expression, and tried to fake a cool exterior. It didn’t work.

Reece raised an eyebrow. “You know him?”

Henry nodded reluctantly. “Unfortunately. We’ve had some run-ins in the past. He is a very dangerous man.” Henry peered closer. "He's holding a key!"

Hanson stared at the screen. "Enhance," he said.

Bernard smiled. "My friend, that is only in CSI. One cannot simply ask the computer to enhance. However, that key is—"

Henry completed the sentence "—a Medeco 3/4 inch diameter high security switch lock key, yes, it is clear from the size and alternating exaggerated contact points spaced every 8 millimeters, and..." Henry stopped, sniffing the air. “Is that a sourdough waffle batter I smell?”

Bernard smiled. “But of course. I leave it with Joanna, with careful feeding instructions, which I have perfected over the years—“

“Gentlemen! _Please_ stay focused,” snapped Reece.

Bernard, changing tracks smoothly, continued, "—and since we know the bitting codes for such a key, it should be easy to reconstruct it from this frame. Thus!" The screen now showed a zoomed in, clearly visible image of the key.

Reece squinted at the screen. "And how is that different from 'enhance', Bernard?"

Bernard shrugged, removed his suit jacket, and pushed his turtleneck sleeves halfway up his shapely forearms. "I confess to you freely, it is not." He began typing.

Henry frowned. "Medeco locks are custom made to order, so it should be easily possible to determine the location of the door that this key opens. Or at least the owner of the building."

"And we can even 3D print a reconstruction of the key!" Bernard gestured to his personal 3D printer, which sat beside his waffle iron. "I always travel with a waffle iron and a 3D printer. We will have to make a few guesses, the video is not good. But I can build perhaps sixteen keys, and one will be a match, without question."

"Excellent work, gentlemen," said Reece. "I'll leave you to it."

The 3D printer whirred to life.

***

Henry Morgan and Lucas Wahl, finished with work for the day, had been watching the 3D printer for twenty minutes.

"It's mesmerizing, isn't it?" said Henry.

"Like, can these things make copies of themselves? Because I'm ready to welcome my new self-replicating plastic overlords," said Lucas.

The lab was dark, and the three of them sat illuminated by the light of the computer screen and the power lights of the printer.

Bernard Oiseau-Bâton ran a hand through his thick, full-bodied dark hair as he stood. He was like a mystery, and the three-quarter-length fine woolen greatcoat he wrapped around himself was like an enigma.

"They are truly amazing, the 3D printers," he said. "The mathematics behind them, while not profound, is fascinating. Now," he said. "I wish to regard the stars, such as can be seen in New York." He left the room, buttoning his coat.

"He is _so cool_ ," said Lucas to Henry. 

Henry grunted noncommitally. 

“Oh, no no, don’t get me wrong, you’re still cool too”, said Lucas, backpedalling furiously. “Plenty cool, just in an old-school way. It's like the old history teacher vs the young hip english teacher. You like them both, for different reasons.”

“Mmm,” said Henry, who was not at all sure he wanted to be the old history teacher. “I would be much more favorably disposed to technology if people would simply put it to _use,_ rather than incessantly tweeting on their Face-Book.”

They continued to gaze at the 3D printer, as it slowly generated copies of the key in the surveillance video.

After a time, Lucas went home and Henry left the building. Bernard Oiseau-Bâton stood in an alley, beside a fire in an empty oil barrel. He acknowledged Henry's presence with a nod, never looking away from the fire.

"You seem troubled," said Henry.

Bernard sighed. "I worry for what is to come," he said. "I worry that our work will not have been fast enough."

Henry looked into the fire, thoughtfully. "We do what we can," he said. "I have realized, over the years, that sometimes what matters most is who you are, and who you care for, not what you do."

Bernard did not reply. Rather, he withdrew his Moleskine notebook from his jacket pocket, and flipped through it briefly. Then he began to tear pages out of it and cast them into the fire. "I never keep them more than a few months," he said to Henry, by way of explanation. "They likewise do not matter. I find the act of writing helpful, to clarify things in my mind—new mathematical theorems, new waffle recipes—but the resulting thoughts do not require recording. The important ones I remember, and the unimportant ones should be forgotten." He cast the entire book into the flames.

Henry nodded. "It is unwise to carry too much with you." He withdrew a flask from his suit jacket, and handed it to Bernard, who took a sip.

"Ah, Macallan 25," said Bernard Oiseau-Bâton. "I perceive that you are a man of exquisite and refined taste, like myself."

"I do not ordinarily carry a hip flask," said Henry. "Indeed I can't think of a single good reason why I have this right now… Do you hear something? A sort of yelling?” 

The yelling drew nearer. It turned out to be Hanson. “Henry! Bernard! Jesus, why can’t either of you own a cellphone?” 

“What’s the point?” they replied in unison. They shared a side-eye glance and a chin-lift of mutual respect.

Hanson swore. “Boys, Lucas has been kidnapped, and I bet that it was Adam who did it."

"NO!" shouted Bernard. "We are too late!" He clenched his fist, and struck a nearby cinderblock wall, which cracked slightly. "Alas, there is not enough Macallan 25 in the world for such a burden, my friend," he added, handing the flask back to Henry. "We must hurry, and make up what time we have lost!"

The two men dashed indoors, retrieved the keys from the 3D printer, and dashed outside, where Jo Martinez and Hanson were waiting for them in an idling car.

***

As Jo drove, Hanson quickly explained to the two men what they had uncovered.

"We've been doing some gumshoe work, and we've narrowed down the location of the map. It specifies a block of warehouses in the industrial district."

"Why is it always a warehouse?" asked Henry. "Why not an office block, for once, or a machine shop?"

"The rent is lower," muttered Bernard, staring out the window moodily. His silhouette against the bright lights of New York was as of a marble statue of a Greek god. He turned up his collar and heaved a sigh, as he removed the plastic wrapper from a new Moleskine notebook, and adjusted the ink canister of his fountain pen.

Jo pulled up silently at the door to the warehouse. "Well, okay, we're here, but we've got a lot of ground to cover. Spread out. We're looking for any sign of recent entry or exit from the warehouse. Lucas could have been taken anywhere in these buildings." They scattered, eyes down.

Bernard stood standing, eyes glittering. It was too much, too much to search. They wouldn't have time. He had to find another way, a faster way.

There was a skittering sound, and a small brown rat poked his nose out from behind a darkened shadow. Bernard's features softened as he knelt and held out his hand. The rat ran up to him, sniffing. Bernard gently cradled the small creature, its little heart thumping, stroked its ears, and whispered to it. From within the pocket of his greatcoat, he withdrew a small morsel of cheese, which he fed to the rat. He then set the rat down. 

The rat scampered off, into the building.

Ten minutes later, it was back. Bernard nodded at it, a new sense of purpose and resolve in his steely expression. Rat and man dashed off together through the building. As they ran, a second rat joined them, and then three more, leading Bernard Oiseau-Bâton through the building to a locked door. He paused and fed all of the rats cheese in thanks.

The 3D printed key in Bernard's hand fit the lock with a satisfying click. Perhaps, he thought, there would indeed be time.

***

Behind the door was a clean white room containing Lucas Wahl, tied to a chair, blindfolded, and gagged. Beside him was Adam.

"Bernard Oiseau-Bâton," said Adam. "Your reputation precedes you."

"The others are not far behind," said Bernard. "Release him."

Adam smiled humorlessly. "I think not. Not until I get what I want."

"And what is that, pray tell?"

"Your notebooks, to be blunt. I believe that you have worked out the mathematics of immortality."

Bernard scoffed. "Hardly! Such a phrase has no meaning! I work in quantum gravity and string theory." 

Adam nodded. "You study exotic quantizations of space which degenerate to the Einstein field equations, and have nontrivial monodromy around spacelike and timelike singularities."

Bernard nodded. "Yes, that is correct... hm. Yes, that is _precisely_ correct, in fact. You seem to know my work remarkably well for a common criminal! But it has nothing to do with immortality."

Adam shook his head. "Consider the point of view of an observer caught in a closed geodesic around a timelike singularity which lies a short distance away, along one of the the hyper-Kähler directions."

Bernard was silent for a while. 

"Well, I concede that you have an interesting idea, although there are many, many things wrong with what you said and it would take much work to say something mathematically correct. But this is a hopelessly naive viewpoint—"

"Don't stall!" shouted Adam, cutting him off. "I read those very words out of your notebook this morning and I don't know what they mean. But you know perfectly well. I don't know how or why you stumbled onto this knowledge but I need it. Give me the notebook!"

Bernard half-shrugged. "I burnt much of that notebook minutes ago," he said, nearly apologetically. He withdrew the remains of the book. "I was rudely interrupted. But two pages remain. By any chance, is this the page you need?" He tore two pages from the book and held them up, for Adam to see. They were covered with arcane symbols and diagrams.

Adam peered at them from across the room, taking two steps towards Bernard. "YES! Yes, give them to me—"

"Good to know," said Bernard, setting them alight with a cigarette lighter. Adam bellowed and ran at Bernard.

"Ah-ah," said Bernard, tapping his own temple. "The knowledge is still in here. That is why I burn the notebooks—either the mathematics is worth remembering, or it is not. If you would like to know what I know, I suggest that you do as I say. And I say that you must let this man go!"

Adam stopped, let out a furious scream, and punched the wall. Then, hearing footsteps approaching from down the corridor, and the voices of the others yelling, "Bernard! Lucas!" he realized he was beaten.

Adam withdrew a straight razor from his coat. “Another time, then, Bernard Oiseau-Bâton," he said and slit his throat from one side to the other. He disappeared entirely as the others crashed into the room. The razor clattered to the ground.

Bernard blinked, but recovered his cool immediately, and made a quick decision. "I just got the door open," he said, as the others untied Lucas. "and found Lucas here." 

"We heard voices," Jo said.

"Well, I said a few words to Lucas before realizing that he could not reply," said Bernard, looking pointedly at Lucas, still gagged, but now untied and unblindfolded. Hanson cut the gag off.

"Yeah," said Lucas. "That's right." Their gazes didn't meet.

***

"Alas, my friends, I must return to Canada," said Bernard Oiseau-Bâton, to a chorus of boos. "I feel the pull of my home." They had just finished debriefing, and everyone was standing in Reece's office.

"Well, it's been great having you here, Bernard, as always," said Reece, as she left him to pack. "And thanks for the help with the case, we couldn't have done it without you."

Jo and Henry shook Bernard's hand. Hanson did as well, saying gruffly "Good work, son. You've earned my respect."

As Bernard boxed up the 3D printer, he heard Lucas' voice. "So what really happened? Something about immortality?"

Bernard did not pause, but he sighed. "It is, I am afraid, best to stay out of it as long as possible. But the person who kidnapped you may well be unable to die, as you say. The mathematics is there." 

Lucas frowned. "What, like... he's a zombie? I have a graphic novel—" 

Bernard shook his head. "No, nothing like that. It is simply that when he dies, his timeline restarts again. He may not be the only one, either." His expression darkened, and he gazed into the distance. "I do not know if I did the right thing, either. I may have made the situation worse. Perhaps Adam will follow me to Canada, and I shall have to lead him in a chase through the back alleys and secret places of my dearest Montreal, which no man knows as well as I. Perhaps I will be able to trap him before he harms anyone." He sighed heavily. “I fear I made a grave error today.”

Lucas scoffed. "No, what are you talking about that was awesome! You were perfect!"

Bernard smiled, and gazed out into the distance. "No, I have many weaknesses," he said.

"Such as?" asked Lucas.

Bernard thought long, and hard. "I am a poor dancer," he said. "I do not know how to fly a helicopter. And I care too deeply about my friends," he said, meeting Lucas' gaze directly as he shook his hand. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Lucas Wahl."

He swept out of the office, waffle iron and 3D printer in hand. Lucas simply stood there, star-struck.

Bernard was _so cool_ , Lucas thought.

When he made it back to morgue, Lucas found Henry hard at work in his office, surrounded by small jars of beige glop. He was holding one to his nose, inhaling deeply, and frowning. 

“Whatcha working on, Dr. Morgan?”

Henry nearly dropped his jar, startled. “What? Ah, er. I am conducting a—a mycological study. For a case. Yes.”

Lucas walked over. “They smells suspiciously like Bernard Oiseau-Bâton’s waffles.”

Henry’s face brightened. “You think so? I’ve been trying to isolate the precise strain of wild yeast, and I believe I have made substantial progress…”

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that was revealing.
> 
> I wanted to write a Mary Sue, but realistically I had no idea how to do that. I sort of gathered that it's supposed to come naturally, and yet it didn't to me... what to do?
> 
> I eventually read the excellent essay [ Self-Insertion and Mary-Sue-Ism](http://www.bast-enterprises.de/ranma/MarySue.html), linked on the fanlore page for the Mary Sue trope. This marvelous essay lists all the differences between a self-insert fic and a Mary Sue, and gives you many tips for avoiding writing a Mary Sue by accident. So I purposefully did all the things it said not to do.
> 
> In case you didn't figure it out, here's [ the translation of my OC's name. ](https://translate.google.com/?ion=1&espv=2&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.&biw=1366&bih=682&dpr=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&client=tw-ob#fr/en/Bernard%20Oiseau-B%C3%A2ton)


End file.
